I’m sharing another “DUH” Moment with my Samsung Galaxy Note. It seems that ever since I purchased my Samsung tablet, I’ve had a problem with external speakers.

If I watch/listen to something without the aid of earphones, the sound came through just fine. If I used the earphones that came with my iPod, I was able to listen to the tablet without a problem. The issue I had was I couldn’t seem to use my more powerful, better sounding computer speakers.

Every time I plugged in the speakers from my computer, the tablet wouldn’t acknowledge that the speakers were plugged in. I tried this with my older Altec Lansing speakers and the newer Bose computer speakers.

Frustration

This led to much frustration. Unlike an iPod, I couldn’t walk around with the tablet in my back pocket while listening to music. Additionally, I sometimes watch programs on my Samsung Galaxy Note and I’d prefer to listen to the programs with full stereo sound.

Not being able to use the tablet for music, I made it a habit of attaching the Smartphone to external speakers to have background music while I worked (my iPod long since died and I will not purchase another one…the subject of another post).

Searching for a Solution

Enough was enough! I started my online search for why my tablet wouldn’t acknowledge external speakers. I spent time reading forum after forum. I found the problem exists for other Samsung devices such as the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy S3, but no mention of the Note 10.1.

A few possible solutions for those devices were:

Power down the device, plug in the external speaker and power it back up (this didn’t work).

Back up the device, restore it to factory settings and then try again (I thought that was a bit drastic, but I would do it as a last resort).

Not wanting to take drastic measures, I gave it one more try. I grabbed my computer speakers, put them on the kitchen table and decided I was going to make this work. I pulled out the tablet and started fiddling around. This is when it hit me like a ton of bricks!!!

The problem wasn’t the device or the speakers. The problem was the protective case. The diameter of the cutout for the earphone plug wasn’t big enough to allow the computer speakers to sit flush with the device. This wasn’t a problem for the smaller iPhone earplugs, but the larger plastic/rubber material around input jack from the computer speakers were resting against the case and not the tablet, thus preventing the necessary connections for the tablet to recognize the input…Major DUH!!!!

Once I removed the case and allowed the computer jack to sit flush against the tablet, viola! I had sound!

This made me think of “Troubleshooting 101.” Before engaging in extensive troubleshooting diagnostics, check to make sure the device is plugged in and the power is on.

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